About This Blog

Artist: Mark D. WhitneyMedia: Digital Photograph

At the time of this writing I’ll have been blogging with WordPress for almost 11 years now. Yikes!

A lot has happened in that time – 3 different jobs, 2 different houses, the loss of 3 beloved pets and the gain of 2 new ones. Some of the changes have been good and some not so much. That’s life I guess.

My internet presence has changed too and frankly it’s reached a point where it’s out of control.

It started with a simple blog by ‘the forestrat’ that was about my hiking adventures and the photographs I took along the way. After a while I wanted a blog that focused more specifically on my photography no matter what the subject. Later I wanted to share my poems too so I started another blog. Before I knew it, things had morphed into 5 blogs, 4 personas, a web site, a Facebook account, and a Twitter account.

I’ve got too many sites and not nearly enough time for them all. I can’t even keep all the passwords straight let alone churn out enough fresh content.

It’s time for a reboot. My goal is to bring all the different threads together under one roof. I know that’s a mixed metaphor, but you get the idea. I want one central location that I can call home.

It’ll be a bit of a grab bag of content. You never know what you might get. On the other hand I’m a holistic type person and I see all this stuff as different parts of the same whole. Personally I can’t separate writing poems from taking photographs from hiking or even from my day job of coding applications. They’re all part of me. They’re all attempts to express myself and to influence the world around me.

Of course we’ll need some way to keep order around here. Categories and tags will help. Another thing I’m going to do is use multiple personalities. Mark Whitney, the one true Mark, will be writing about his photography. Rufus McGurk, the hard-boiled 50’s throwback, will be covering the Art scene. Marko-san, the Zen dude, will be sharing Haiku inspired poetry. There may be more people inside me, but that’s enough to start.